(Left) Silje Margrete Ander, Norwegian Church Aid, and Bishop Nelson Kisare, Mennonite Church of Tanzania, during an interfaith prayer on the sidelines of the Nairobi UN tax convention session. Photo: Catherine Namnyak/ACT
Reflections on how the global tax structures deepen inequality and undermine development
(LWI) – In the midst of unfair global tax structures that continue to deepen inequality and undermine development, faith-based organizations (FBOs) must increase their advocacy efforts and press for reforms that uphold justice and protect human dignity.
These views were shared by representatives of The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and other FBOs, engaging in the multilateral processes aimed at the development of a global tax regime, and who participated in a recent session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on a United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation.
The representatives of faith-based organizations expressed grave concern that the current global tax rules continue to enable large-scale tax avoidance, illicit financial flows, and unequal decision-making power. These practices deny developing countries the resources needed for essential public services. Without reforms, they noted, inequality will worsen and governments will remain unable to respond to social, economic, and climate crises, which disproportionately affect the most vulnerable people.
Silje Margrete Ander, Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), noted that the global tax system, designed nearly a century ago, no longer reflects economic realities and has allowed multinational corporations and wealthy nations to benefit at the expense of developing countries.
Right now, huge amounts of money are lost through tax havens and profit-shifting, leaving governments without funds for basic services.
Silje Margrete Ander, Norwegian Church Aid
“The global tax system was designed nearly a century ago for a very different world,” Ander said. “Right now, huge amounts of money are lost through tax havens and profit-shifting, leaving governments without funds for basic services. Taxes should help pay for health care, education, and disaster response—not deepen inequality.”
Accountability and fairness
“Now is the time to reshape global finance so it serves all people and the planet—not just the privileged few,” said LWF delegate, Ignatius Michael Uhuru Dempers, Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia.
Dempers, who serves on the LWF Council as advisor to its Committee on Advocacy and Public Voice, stressed that extreme inequality is aggravating the economic, political, social, and environmental crises around the world today. Wealth concentration has reached destabilizing levels and many countries, including those in Africa, are unable to mobilize domestic resources because of large financial leakages through the global tax system, he noted.
“We are living in an age of oligarchies, where a small class of ultra-rich individuals wield increasing control over all dimensions of life in harmful, opaque, and unaccountable ways that subvert democracy,” he said.
The current global tax rules continue to enable large-scale tax avoidance. Photo: Catherine Namnyak/ACT
Mr Ignatius Michael Uhuru Dempers (in printed shirt), representing the LWF at the November 2025 UN tax negotiations’ discussions in Nairobi. Photo: LWF/I. Toroitich
AACC General Secretary Rev. Dr Fidon Mwombeki. Photo: Catherine Namnyak/ACT
Citing his country Namibia, rich in minerals and other natural resources, he said it is “currently ranked the second most unequal country in the world.” The obligation to service loans owed to international financial markets continues to postpone “essential investments in basic income grants, healthcare, housing, and sanitation,” Dempers added.
Rev. Dr Fidon Mwombeki, General Secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), described the negotiations in Nairobi as a moment of moral reckoning. He argued that taxation reflects a social contract based on fairness and responsibility, and that current global practices undermine these principles by enabling profit-shifting and weakening the capacity of poorer nations to provide social protection.
“When tax systems favor the powerful, when multinationals hide profits and when the rich evade their obligations while the poor are burdened, we betray the divine principle of justice,” he said.
On the sidelines of the lobbying sessions, the FBO representatives including AACC, NCA, LWF, Christian Aid and the World Council of Churches, also hosted an interfaith prayer.
Isaiah Toroitich, LWF Head of Global Advocacy, emphasized the need to sustain advocacy by the LWF and other FBOs in global tax reform forums. While the November 2025 Third session in Nairobi was not a decision-making meeting, “it set the stage for more work by governments and other major stakeholders towards reaffirming the collective commitment to advance a fair and inclusive UN Tax Convention grounded in equity and democratic accountability.” The LWF will continue to engage in advocacy in the forthcoming sessions in 2026 and, together with other faith-based organizations, has made a written submission with key issues that the proposed framework tax convention must include.
